Siege of Valeria: Defending the City from Total Ruin
Defend the city from endless waves of troops and siege engines over the course of the final 7 days in Siege of Valeria.
In a surprising move, my husband actually opened up Siege of Valeria and played it first! I was eyeing a few other games to get to my table, but that decided things for me. To the city! This sort of tower defense game hasn’t popped up often in my collection, so I was very interested to find out what this solo-only game would be like… And how I would fare!
Game Overview
Game Name: Siege of Valeria
Publication Year: 2022
Designer: Glenn Flaherty
Artist: Mihajlo Dimitrievski
Publisher: Daily Magic Games
Solo Mode: Designed for Solo (Included in the Base Game)
Over the course of a week, the final siege must be held off. Troops must be defeated, while a total of 13 siege engines crawl ominously closer to the turrets. Damage must be mitigated, while champions can provide special abilities. It’s all or nothing in this last stand to defend the city!
First Play
January 19, 2023
Complexity
2
Latest Play
December 23, 2023
Expansions
1
Setup Time
5 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
12
Play Time
35 Minutes
High Score
5
Game Area
24" x 24"
Low Score
0
An Ominous Sight
Talk about a busy battlefield! This is how it all looks, though, with troops occupying 4 rows and a set of siege engines all lined up in the back. All sorts of action!
The cards closest to the city are in the Vanguard. They damage the turrets if they’re not defeated during a round.
In the case of siege engines, they attack when in range, which differs from type to type. Instant defeat happens when one of these remains in the Vanguard, too.
All troops and siege engines advance from round to round, while new cards come out. Just an ordinary day. Ha ha!
Strength and Magic
Every card has a value to defeat it. Many require just strength, while magical troops must be countered by magic. Magic can also help augment strength. Useful!
A pool of dice provide these values during every round. Poor rolls can certainly be a hindrance, although there are ways to improve the values of some dice.
The trick is that a single die doesn’t leave anything leftover. If I use a 6 to defeat a 3, that’s it: The die is spent.
I enjoyed learning how to play, as it looked like there was a lot going on in terms of my possible decisions!
Troop Card Abilities
Perhaps one of the coolest aspects was in the troop cards. Rather than simply discarding them when defeated, they came into my hand to provide special bonuses.
A Goblin Warrior could change the value of a single die by 1, while this Efreet Enflammé was powerful enough to take out a siege engine with another card.
Wait… Isn’t that the Fiery Efreet or Burning Efreet? I spy a French word in the mix. It’s fine: More languages!
These abilities can be combined for exciting moments. I even took a 1 value die to be worth 12 with just 2 cards!
Random Events
Most of the information is open between rounds, although dice rolls can change strategies. Random events add a little more flair, though. Good or bad? No one knows!
Actually, most of the events are typically negative. Some offer the ability to look ahead at some cards, but I was lucky to see more than 1 positive event per play.
Another minor quibble… Look closely at this flavor text, and a typo might jump out. Or maybe that’s just me. Ha!
I liked the story elements, but I mainly focused on the action at the bottom of the cards. Quick and easy to find.
Championship Moves
Each turret could only handle a certain amount of damage before it crumbled, allowing the enemy to swarm into the city. But with limited damage, champions took to the wall!
These brave individuals offered additional abilities that came in handy. Plus, they could help repair any damage.
It might sound like a lot, but gameplay flowed very smoothly. I worked my way through troops and siege engines, mindful of the limited time to achieve victory.
What I didn’t expect was an initial victory at the highest scoring tier. Hurray! But… Where to go from there?
The Illusion of Variability and Challenge
Keep in mind that I’m going to be a bit harsh about the base game, mainly because the expansion content feels like it should have been included to create a full game. Setting that aside for a moment, on the surface, it looks like there should be lots of variety. Tons of troop cards and siege engines, not all of which are used during every play.
Yet only 2 troop cards are removed during setup. The rest will all come into play, so it’s just a matter of where they show up. With lots of duplicates, it just means that all of the troops will appear in a slightly different order. Siege engines are also duplicated, and although 5 are removed during setup, that still leaves 13 to defeat.
Champions offer more choices, yet as I discovered, some of them were vital. The rest… Were mainly there to repair the turrets. Some combinations existed for interesting moments, but it wasn’t like I didn’t see them all. With 4 plays, I saw what could be done and felt like I had experienced it all. Each play was just a slight variation on the same formula.
Finally, I reached the highest scoring tier during my first play. Maybe I got lucky or did really well, but I never like hitting the top without any experience. Then, to repeat that twice felt like the challenge wasn’t there. I could keep aiming for a higher score, but why? The puzzle would be similar, and I wasn’t actually achieving anything.
I’ll end this minor rant with a reminder that the campaign expansion adds everything I hoped for! There will be lots to talk about in regards to that one, but I’m not entirely sure why it was left out of the base game. Expansions that create the full game aren’t my favorite thing in the world. If it’s necessary for the full game… Why not add it to the base game?
Trebuchet Trouble
During this session of 4 plays, I only lost once. It was this horrific Trebuchet that spoiled it all. Come on! But looking at everything, it was simply bad dice rolls.
Now, I know what we’ll all look to: All of the dice mitigation options. But keep in mind that these are all single-use cards. Constantly rolling poorly is very bad!
So when my dice came up with 1s, 2s, and 3s consistently, I just couldn’t quite hold off the enemy. Defeated.
I like the lessons learned when losing, but this came down to bad rolls. There wasn’t anything else I could have done.
Defender of the Realm
Of my other plays, I won on the final day with exactly 13 victory points every time. Talk about consistent! Yet that meant I reached the highest scoring tier, just like that.
I went back through the rules multiple times. My husband played solo and also hit the highest scoring tier.
So this was a little bit of a letdown. There wasn’t anything to keep me coming back to get better. What other card combinations were out there? I had seen everything.
The variability was pretty low, too. But I had my eyes set on the Siege of Valeria: Campaign Expansion next time!
Events of All Sorts
As expected, most of the events proved to be problematic. Yet as much as I skipped over the flavor text at times, it was worth it to go back through for the little stories!
But the problem was how limited the variety was. Events and dice rolls formed the basis for unique moments, while duplicate troop cards were what they were.
I will say that at this point, I moved onto the expansion and have a lot more to say in a followup post. Mostly good!
It felt like the base game was a little light, and now I know why… The full game ended up in the expansion.
Session Overview
Play Number: 1-4
Solo Mode: Designed for Solo (Included in the Base Game)
Play Details: Standard Difficulty Level
Outcome: 13, 0, 13, 13 (3 Wins and 1 Loss)
Champions helped hold the defenses! I enjoyed playing the game, although at the end, it didn’t seem like I would make different choices. It was about defeating troops early on, and then splitting up the dice between troops and siege engines. It was balanced in the sense that it all came down to the final day, yet I wanted to see what the campaign expansion offered. A reason to keep playing?
%
10 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
8
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
9
Originality
Design & Theme
7
Quality
Components & Rules
9
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
7
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
4
+ Pros (Positives)
- The artwork may be familiar within the series, yet it’s excellent and looks amazing in the play space.
- Finding card combinations for the first time is very exciting, especially with the way a single die can be used.
- Siege engines aren’t always within range, so it’s possible to carefully advance each column to know what’s next.
- Turrets can handle a good deal of damage, and sometimes it’s best to take the impact to defeat siege engines.
- More dice can be added from troop card abilities for much larger dice pools that are fun to roll and use.
- A helpful reference card makes gameplay very quick to follow, while the rulebook has extra clarifications.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Despite there being a lot of cards, the variety is relatively low with most plays progressing in the same way.
- Continuous bad dice rolls can determine the fate of a play since troop card abilities are limited and single use.
- The scoring tiers don’t feel challenging, even though the final round is often when victory or defeat happens.
- All of the choices often feel pretty obvious after determining the best way to use the dice during a round.
Victory Conditions
Score 9+ Campaign Points
- Overall Goal Progress 67%
Goals and Milestones
Score at least 13 points with the base game.
Win at least 1 game at the standard difficulty level.
Score at least 6 points with the campaign expansion.
Continue the Conversation
Have you played Siege of Valeria? Do you enjoy solo tower defense games? I had a fun time with a handful of plays, but didn’t see anything that would keep me coming back. Stay tuned for the next post about the game, though… I can already say that the expansion is exactly what I was hoping for! It’s only a shame it’s a separate product.
I can see the argument for an introductory mode when a game is complicated – Heat: Pedal to the Metal does this, explicitly saying that you should probably only play the base game with no expansions once or twice while you’re learning. But the expansions that make it into a full game are right there in the main box.
I like introductory modes in a lot of situations, too! The odd thing is that the base game teaches you to hold onto troop cards until the end, which means they’re worth extra victory points. But with the expansion, scoring comes down to whether or not you defend the city and defeat a boss… So you want to use them strategically, yet not hang onto them.
Just feels like an odd decision for a new game. Had the expansion just added more of the same, it would make sense. But it changes the game a lot, from one that’s solvable to one that’s very challenging with an ongoing narrative across 3 plays. I’ve gone from winning a lot to losing consistently, and I’m finding some interesting things with the asymmetric elements. Really a shame to split things up! It’s hard to tell someone that if they don’t like the base game, investing more money in a separate expansion will make it better. Even though it does, that’s not a great feeling knowing that the base game doesn’t feel complete.